Bernhard Zondek

Bernhard Zondek studied at Berlin, where he obtained his doctorate in 1919. He became assistant under Karl Franz (1870-1926) at the university women’s clinic in the Berlin Charité, where he was habilitated for obstetrics and gynaecology in 1923. In 1926 he became ausserordentlicher professor, and in 1929 physician-in-chief at the department of obstetrics and gynaecology in the municipal hospital of Berlin-Spandau. After the Nazis came to power in 1933 he was dismissed from his posts and he left Germany for Stockholm. In 1940 he moved to Jerusalem where he was appointed professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Hebrew University, and head of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Hadassah Hospital.

He was one of the proponents of the inter-dependence of the endocrine glands under the guiding hand of the pituitary and his studies on pituitary-ovary interaction did much to establish this fundamental tenet. He established that the chorionic tissue of the placenta had endocrine capacity and this led to diagnostic techniques important for the recognition and treatment of hydatiform mole and chorionic carcinoma.

• Beziehungen der Geburtshilfe und Gynäkologie zur inneren Medizin.
  With Karl Franz.
  Spezielle Pathologie und Therapie innerer Krankheiten, volume 9, 1, 2; Berlin and Vienna, 1923.
• Die Hormone des Ovariums und des Hypophysenvorderlappens.
  Berlin, J. Springer, 1931. Second edition, 1935.
• Das Hormon des Hypophysenvorderlappens. I. Testobjekt zum Nachweis des Hormons.
  With Selmar Aschheim.
  Klinische Wochenschrift, Berlin, 1927, 6: 348-352. Das Hormon des Hypophysenvorderlappens. II.
  With S. Aschheim.
  Klinische Wochenschrift, Berlin, 1928, 7: 831-835.
  Isolation of the gonadotrophic hormone of the anterior pituitary (Prolan A & B).